Must be a few super league coaches feeling embarrassed given how Halifax stifled Saints. Why do teams play into their hands week in week out?

But the formula worked didn’t it. It beat the less formulaic approach.

The very top teams have both the formulaic grind and the ability to produce something from nowhere. Leeds and Saints at their best over the past 15 years for instance.

But you also need to be able to “just play the game” at times. It’s often derided because it’s not great to watch. But that doesn’t it mean lacks skill or ability to do that well, consistently. It’s just a different skill, a more mental rather than physical skill and an area in which the Aussies have usually been ahead of us.

Look back at internationals for the last god knows how many years and you’ll see an England/GB team making errors forcing things and the Aussies playing the game consistently well. Then when at their best they have the finishing touches to produce quality to top it off.

The closest we’ve come to beating the Aussies in a final or truly meaningful game was the recent World Cup Final. We played the game well, matched the Aussies in that department for the first time I’ve seen. We just didn’t have that little bit of extra quality needed. But you can’t skip straight to that step of just chucking the ball around without the other element. It doesn’t work.

Credit is due to Fax for keeping the Saints under 30. But at 28-2 stifled is probably not quite the apt word.

I wonder what certain Saints fans would be saying on here had Wire or Wigan only beaten a championship side 26-2 today? Credit Halifax all you want but Saints should have done better today and you bleeding well know it.

Just got home from the game (long story, but it was a 400-mile round trip for me today). The problem for Fax was always going to be that we would struggle to get over the whitewash. We had a couple of moments when things might have finished differently, but we did need a stroke of good fortune for that to happen. Apart from that, the effort put into defending for 80 minutes by a part-time team is always going to blunt their attacking options.

Roby was a major influence on the game, scoring 1 and making 2 tries (I think?). Without him, Saints would still have won, but the score may have been a tad closer. I also don't agree with tries being awarded when the player clearly loses control of the ball but still has contact with the side of it when it hits the ground (that's how it looked to me, albeit viewed on a not-so-big screen at the other end of the pitch!).

Comments have been made about high shots from Fax as well as being constantly offside. The tackling was robust, but the Saints players were hardly gentle in their approach either! From what I could see both teams were stretching the limit of being offside vs onside. Perhaps more with Fax pinching some yardage and Saints moving before the ball was played?

Saints were obviously worthy winners, but I'm proud of every one of the 17 Fax players today.

You are correct, if we had played the Wire instead we would have played much better than that and probably would have scored our usual average of 30+ points. I will give Halifax a lot of credit by the way they fully deserved it and played the game to keep the score down, heroic effort from them.

Both Fax and Swinton are playing below their success history.

Fax have 4 Championships and 5 Challenge Cups and were part of the biggest crowd in rugby league (and all Northern sport) history in the 1954 CCfinal replay. When you think that Wire and Fax played three finals in two weeks at Wembley, Odsal and Maine Road for a combined crowd of 220,935, Fax are definitely a sleeping giant.

Swinton have 6 Championships and 3 Challenge Cups and are one of only seven clubs who’ve ever won “All Four Cups” in one season.

If the game had gone the same way the more sensible Saints fans would be saying the same thing. That Wire/Wigan were massive favourites which changes the mentality of a team, that they forced the play a bit too much in the first half but controlled pretty much the entire game and we’re up against a resolute and motivated defence. Despite this there was only ever 1 winner, Halifax never looked close to scoring.
Wire/Wigan did everything they needed to to win, the result was never in doubt and Halifax deserve massive credit for their efforts.

Those suggesting Saints were really poor both don’t understand modern rugby league and are doing Halifax a massive disservice.

Oh come on. You don’t think the sporting and social landscape has changed in 65 years?

I think Fax can be bigger than they are of course with some investment and some success but to suggest they are a “sleeping giant” based on attendances from 65 years ago is just daft.

This is not having a go at Fax, it’s just a little realism is needed.
They are also surrounded by current decent sized clubs in Huddersfield, Bradford and Keighley, which would restrict their growth to some degree and of course Halifax is still a relatively small place itself.

The daily mail has actually has a report about the game as one of its main sports stories! What’s going on?

Why? The game for Saints was about getting through it in a professional and efficient manner without losing any players. We were always going to win and Saints defense is that good, Halifax didn't threaten the line once. I thought Saints went about things very respectfully, taking the 2 was totally unnecessary, but they did it as a doff of the cap to Halifax. There were certain sets, usually after a Saints error where we obviously stepped up the intensity and just oblierated Halifax, often winning the ball back. Then the intensity would drop again.

A few Wire fans near me were saying if Saints don't score 80 it means we've done badly. But Saints never went into that game with the intention of humiliating Halifax. We went into it with the intention of getting through the game with our place in the final secured and as much energy preserved as possible. I think we did that, the likes of Walmsley and Thompson didn't do huge minutes and we didn't let Halifax score a try. Halifax were always at arms length.

Had Halifax played any other side in Super League yesterday they would have scored at least a couple of tries and been in the game. They were superb and should be proud of themselves. They've got some very good players and really worked hard for each other. Frankly disrespectful of fans of other clubs to be mocking Saints for 'only' beating Halifax by a certain margin.

Fax battled well in defence, but never got anywhere near Saints line. There was nothing to suggest they'd score at least a couple of tries against any SL opposition, so I disagree with the sweeping statement that's highlighted.

As Fax knew they were not going to win this game I should imagine they set there stall out to make it a defensive damage limitation one, Saints have the best attack and the best defence in super league. So if Fax had played another super league with less attack and defence strengths they may have had been able to proportion more energy to score points.

I actually thought Halifax would bring more fans to Bolton than they did given it was their biggest game in 30 years.

What is their current average home crowd?

I don't know the current average, but it will start with a "1" followed by 3 digits. There's latent support in the town, but we need success on the field to build more support. Tbh, it probably didn't help the "casual" Fax fans to attend given the assumption that we'd get smashed by Saints. The location and lack of parking didn't help either, but probably wouldn't have affected the attendance.

As was noted on TV, 5 minutes from the end, you'd have thought that Fax had won and Saints lost looking at the crowd. All the noise in the last 10 minutes (ref: "twist and shout"icon_wink.gif was from the Fax fans, less in number but far greater in volume.